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Work experience
Work experience in year 10/11
In most local schools everyone has two or three weeks of work experience during year 10 or 11, usually all together in one period. Work experience is planned to help you:
- learn about the world of work, understand how companies are organised and how life at work differs from that at school/college
- see how things you have learned in the classroom are applied in practice
- understand how your skills and knowledge can be put to use in the workplace
- begin to find out what starting work might feel like and to prepare for the move between education and employment
- have a chance to work with people of all ages.
Some year 10/11 students have extra work experience. For some people this is because they are taking a work-linked course at school or college. For others, parents and school might agree that extra work experience will help you get and keep a job when you finish school or college.
If you want to know more about how work experience is organised in your school, ask your tutor.
Work experience post 16
Work experience might also be part of your post 16 course, especially if you are taking a vocational course, where work experience is often essential. Often you do one or two days work experience each week for several terms. This gives you a good chance to get more experience of the sort of work you are planning to do. Your tutor will tell you more about the work experience for people on your course.
Experience from paid work
Many people get part time jobs. Often they are in retailing or catering. Whether or not your part time job is linked to the sort of work you want to do full time, you can get really useful experience. Team work, planning, getting on with people of all ages, dealing with difficult customers ... all these are skills which you can build up in a part time job.
